The Layer Pyramid, el haram el midawwar, is a ruined step pyramid dating to the 3rd Dynasty of Egypt (2686 BC to 2613 BC) and located in the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan. Its ownership is uncertain and may be attributable to Pharaoh Khaba. However, the pyramid architecture is very similar to that of the Buried Pyramid of King Sekhemkhet and, for this reason, is firmly datable to the 3rd Dynasty.
The Layer Pyramid was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century by two teams who reported conflicting estimates regarding its size and number of underground chambers. No artefacts were found throughout the excavations, and no trace of burial could be found. For this reason, it is unclear whether the pyramid was used to bury a pharaoh or was abandoned following the king’s premature death.
At the time of its construction, the pyramid was surrounded by a necropolis housing large mastabas belonging to the high officials of the 3rd Dynasty state. A mortuary temple was built on the eastern side of the pyramid, and a valley temple was possibly located several hundred metres from it.
Location of the Layer Pyramid
The Layer Pyramid is within a restricted military area in Giza Governorate, barring modern excavations.
History of the Layer Pyramid
The Layer Pyramid was first examined, and its surroundings were explored in 1839 by John Shae Perring. Soon after, in 1848, the pyramid was identified as such by Karl Richard Lepsius, who listed it as number XIV in his pioneering list of pyramids. Around 40 years later, in 1886, Gaston Maspero unsuccessfully searched for the entrance of the underground passages of the pyramid, which was discovered in 1896 by Jacques de Morgan. The latter undertook excavations of the pyramid but stopped after clearing the first few steps of the descending stairway.
Further investigations were then performed in 1900 by Alessandro Barsanti, who uncovered the vertical access shaft leading to the burial chamber. As several corridors and chambers were seemingly unfinished and utterly devoid of artefacts, Barsanti deemed that the pyramid had never been used. Shortly after, in 1910–1911, George Reisner and Clarence S. Fisher worked on the site, excavating the north and east exteriors of the pyramid and the cemeteries surrounding it.
As Barsanti, Reisner and Fisher estimated, the pyramid dimensions differ significantly, and even the numbers of underground galleries they report disagree. Unfortunately, the pyramid has lain within a restricted military area since 1970. Consequently, there has been no excavation since Reisner and Fisher’s superficial work, leaving the structures beneath the pyramid in doubt. Furthermore, the pyramid is sanded up, hampering modern estimations of its dimensions.
Description
The Layer Pyramid lies close to the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan, 8 km (5.0 mi) southwest of Giza and 7 km (4.3 mi) north of Saqqara. The main structure is located on a rock ridge just above the floodplain.
Superstructure
The Layer Pyramid has a square base whose side is about 84 m (276 ft) long, slightly smaller than the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemket—based on the dimensions of the pyramid of Djoser, the Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer estimated that the layer pyramid was initially planned to comprise five steps and would have reached c. 42–45 m (138–148 ft) in height.
Today, only two of these steps remain, reaching a height of about 17 m (56 ft). The current ruined state of the pyramid allows a view of its core, which is an 11 m2 (120 sq ft) pyramidal mound made of poor-quality rough stone blocks taken from the local bedrock. This core is surrounded by a 2.6 m (8.5 ft) thick casing of the same masonry. It is surrounded by 14 layers of mud bricks bonded with clay mortar and disposed of almost vertically, with an inward inclination angle of 68°. Like the innermost stone casing of the pyramid core, each mud bricklayer is 2.6 m (8.5 ft) thick.
Whether the pyramid was finished or left unfinished is disputed among experts. The Egyptianologist Rainer Stadelmann believes the pyramid was finished, but others, such as Miroslav Verner, think the building was left unfinished because of the pharaoh’s premature death. In particular, no traces of outer cladding were found, which could hint that there never was one because the pyramid was not completed.
Mud bricks were found at the pyramid’s base, which is not associated with the pyramid itself but is interpreted as remnants of a construction ramp.
Substructure
Funerary complex
The disposition of the substructures of the layer pyramid is highly similar to that found in the Buried Pyramid of Sekhemket. Consequently, Mark Lehner and others suggest that the two pyramids must have been constructed very close in time.
The entrance to the underground structures lies on the east, which would be unparalleled until the pyramid of Senusret II was constructed almost 1000 years later. Egyptologists Vito Maraglioglio and Celeste Rinaldi proposed that the Egyptian architects chose this unique feature to free the pyramid’s north side to build a temple. Aidan Dodson showed, however, that in this situation, the pyramid construction ramp would have “impinged on any northern temple construction even more damagingly”. Instead, he explains this unique eastern entrance as resulting from a desire by the architects to allow for easy access to the pyramid storerooms located immediately beneath the east entrance.
The entrance immediately leads to a 36 m (118 ft) long steep stairway and a west corridor. The corridor ends in a straight vertical shaft, at the top of which is the so-called upper corridor, an unfinished passage that goes south toward the pyramid’s centre. At the bottom of the shaft is a T-shaped crossway. To the left, this crossway leads south to the lower corridor, halfway of which is a narrow stairway so limited that a sarcophagus could hardly have been passed through it. The lower corridor then finishes in the king’s burial chamber.
Barsanti drew another gallery above the burial chamber in this stairway area, absent in Reisner’s and Fisher’s notes. To the right of the T-shaped crossway is a U-shaped gallery system. The ground plan of the gallery system resembles that of a comb, comprising rows of chambers, totalling 32, which were possibly destined to be storage rooms for the grave goods. The gallery was “clean and empty as if the workmen had only left”.
The king’s burial chamber is located 26 m (85 ft) below ground and is nearly square, with a base of 3.63 m × 2.65 m (11.9 ft × 8.7 ft) and a ceiling height of 3 m (9.8 ft). The burial chamber contained no traces of a sarcophagus, which hints at the king’s premature death and the absence of artefacts in the gallery.
Funerary complex and necropolis
The funerary complex of the layer pyramid shows no trace of an enclosure wall, which is present in both earlier and later pyramid complexes. This could be because the stones constituting the wall were robbed over time or simply because the wall was never started, being usually the last element of the pyramid complex to be built. On the eastern side of the pyramid, the remnants of brick walls could indicate the presence of a mortuary temple. The same goes for the ruins of a building several hundred metres away from the pyramid, which might have been the valley temple. If this were a valley temple, its east-west orientation would be unique in all pyramid complexes. Still, the archaeological traces are so tenuous that any closer examination and more precise reconstruction is impossible today.
Necropolis
The layer pyramid is surrounded by five cemeteries dating to the 1st Dynasty, 2nd Dynasty, late 3rd Dynasty, 18th Dynasty and Roman Period. Of these cemeteries, only the one dating to the late 3rd Dynasty contains large tombs and four mud-brick mastabas. Reisner and Fisher observe that this is expected of the necropolis surrounding the pyramid of a pharaoh, the large tombs being those of the royal family and court officials. In particular, around 200 metres (660 ft) north of the layer pyramid is a considerable mastaba, today known as Mastaba Z500, which yielded eight marble bowls inscribed with the serekh of King Khaba. Reisner and Fisher, therefore, conclude that “if the mastabas belong to people connected with the king who built the pyramid, it is probable that the king’s name was Khaba”. This opinion is shared by most Egyptologists who attribute the layer pyramid to Khaba.
Date and attribution
The architecture of the layer pyramid allows it to be securely dated to the period between the reigns of King Sekhemkhet and that of King Snofru, the founder of the 4th Dynasty. Rainer Stadelmann, Miroslav Verner and Jean-Philippe Lauer compare the architecture of the layer pyramid with that of the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemkhet, expecting the layer pyramid to have originally consisted of five steps, just as its near-contemporary predecessors. At one site, the layer pyramid exhibits both complex developments concerning its substructures and simplifications concerning the building methods employed for the superstructure. According to these Egyptologists, the layer pyramid is an advanced version of the buried pyramid of Sekhemkhet.
The remaining problem about the layer pyramid is who built it. Most scholars believe it was likely King Khaba of the late 3rd Dynasty. This conclusion is based on stone bowls and vases bearing the Khaba serekh, discovered in Mastaba Z500, located just north of the pyramid. Rainer Stadelmann identifies Khaba with King Huni, the last ruler of the 3rd Dynasty. His hypothesis is based on his reading of the Turin canon, a king list compiled in the early Ramesside period c. 1300 BC, some 1400 years after Huni’s lifetime.
The Turin canon credits Huni with a relatively long reign of 24 years. According to Stadelmann, this time would be sufficient to cover the time needed to complete the building of the layer pyramid. He also argues that royal monuments of the first three Egyptian dynasties only present a king’s Horus name in a serekh, and only later do they record the throne or birth name. Thus, the serekh of Khaba could correspond to the throne name Huni. In this case, the layer pyramid would be Huni’s tomb. This conclusion is contested by most Egyptologists who think that Huni built the Meidum Pyramid instead, point to the layer pyramid’s apparent unfinished state, and identify Khaba with King Hudjefa II mentioned in the Turin canon.